To Do Better than Before: Form One More Good Habit

 “Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” Confucius

Today, we shall peep into the findings of a master teacher in the field of human psychology, James Clear, who is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, ‘Atomic Habits.’ 

James is true to his name (Clear) in that he makes it explicitly clear that we can radically change our lives for good by changing our daily habits even in atomic measures.

He argues that a radical change doesn’t necessarily require superhuman efforts. Clear says that small, meaningful changes over time are all we need to experience quantum leap in our lives, individually and collectively.

He also explains that our outcomes are the net results of our habits; that is, whatever is left when our bad habits are subtracted from the good ones, in all aspects of our lives. Therefore, our financial worth is the net result of our earning and spending habits. Our health and vitality is a function of how we live, eat, sleep, exercise and even work, on a day-to-day basis. 

Without a doubt, who you are, is determined by what you repeatedly do. So if you are among the elite few who have learned to live right most of the time, then thumbs up! 

However, if like most people, you need a change in certain areas of living; James emphatically asserts that there is unmitigated assurance for you or anyone who is determined to make necessary improvements to rise higher in life. Opportunity for growth is always there, if we are committed to life-long evolution. 

And Stephen Guise, the author of Mini-habit also adds his two cents worth: “When you add good habits into your life, it illuminates another possible path, restores your confidence, and gives you hope."

Now let’s go deep into James Clear’s laws of change: 

According to James, if you find yourself in a rut and unable to form a critical habit which you need to get to the next level in your game, he asserts that the problem is not you but your approach. 

And to make that clear, he gives us an illustration of the trick on how human behaviour works and how good habits are formed.

The Habit Loop as described by James Clear: 

“If a behavior is insufficient in any of the (following) four stages, it will not become a habit. 

Eliminate the CUE and your habit will never start. 

Reduce the CRAVING and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. 

Make the behavior DIFFICULT and you won’t be able to do it. 

And if the reward fails to SATISFY your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future. 

Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated.

In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. 

This cycle is known as the habit loop.”

How to Form a Good Habit

“To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.” Maxwell Maltz 

To make a good behaviour into a habit, James gives these four practical tips: one, make it obvious, two, make it attractive, three, make it easy and finally, make it satisfying.

Now let’s analyze the tips (though, Clear calls them laws) a little bit further in short points:

Make It Obvious

Write down your current habits to become aware of them.

Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible; redesign your environment

Make It Attractive

Join a group/club where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.

Do something you enjoy shortly before a new habit; create a routine.

Make It Easy

Think small; start tiny.

Redesign your environment to make future actions easier.

Use the ‘Two-Minute Rule’; scale down your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less.

Make It Satisfying

Celebrate: give yourself an immediate reward when you complete your habit.

Finally, if you want to live better, you need more good habits. And to form them new, one habit at a time, follow the earlier mentioned, very simple rules: make it obvious; make it attractive; make it easy, and make it satisfying.

This is all you need to make a change for good. But you must resolve to do it now because what’s easy to do is even easier not to do.

To Achieve Any Goal, Setup the Right System

“We’re quick to blame ourselves for lack of progress, but slow to blame our strategies.”_ Stephen Guise

Accomplishing anything starts with the mental picture of the desired state: a clear goal of what one wants. Clarity of purpose is essential from the get go. This will guide our efforts on the way to achieving exactly what we seek.

However, not many people are effective at setting their minds to something and achieving it. Like them, I have also encountered this challenge in some fashion, and solving that sort of a problem is the purpose of today’s article.

After my own share of failure on goal getting, I am gradually coming to the conclusion that the trick to unfailing achievement in big areas of life may have to do with something more important than setting a goal.  And that is: setting up a system to realize the goal. 

If you disagree, then I ask you these questions: does every student who aims at becoming a valedictorian attain it?

Or, does everyone with a goal to lose some weight accomplish it?

Or, does everyone with a goal to master a special skill become proficient in the end?

Of course, not all people with a goal practically achieve their aims. 

Now, if goal-setting is as effective as many peak performance experts claim, then it begs the question: Why do so many people still fail despite having a goal at the start?

The answer lies in their system: what they do, each day.

A goal is only a compass for the direction we want to go. But to ensure it will happen, we must set up a system to keep us on track towards the envisioned destination. 

On this, James Clear, the author of ‘Atomic Habits’, says that to achieve any goal, a system is more valuable than the prize. 

In his words: “When you focus on the practice (system) instead of the performance (outcome), you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time.”

In ‘How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big’, author Scott Adams explains further. He writes: “If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.”

For example:

If you want to be fit and healthy, set a goal, yes. But more important than the goal, setup a system of right living each day—regarding your pattern of eating, sleeping and exercise.

If want to be a valedictorian, set a goal, yes. But more important than the goal, setup a system of focused regular study, each day.

If you want to be a bestselling author, set a goal, yes. But more important than the goal, you need the habit of sitting down to write each day.

System is less about hitting a particular target; it is more about sticking to the process and not missing a practice. A system will always yield as long as you have the right system in place and you commit to living by it.  

If you’re having a real hurdle towards any goal, the problem is not necessarily about the goal; it is about your system. Focusing on the system, rather than the goal, is the way to go for the attainment of a really big, long-term vision. 

And James Clear adds: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your system.” In other words, a bad system will sabotage a good intention, every time.

Whatever your aim is, whether it is to get into better shape, build a successful business, or write a best-selling book, committing to the right system is surest way to making it happen.

Before You Work Harder, Think Harder First

“There is no waste in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

Today we want to learn how we can make better choices in our work from one of the most influential scientists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton, with his second law of motion.

The law states that acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the applied force, and the direction (of that force) but inversely proportional to the mass of the object. 

Put another way, the vector sum of the forces on an object is equal to the mass of that object times the acceleration of the object.

The law in a nutshell says: Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration.

F=M*A

In other words (productivity terms), the outcome that we can produce is not only determined by our capacity (the volume of our efforts) but also the direction (the bearing in which we channel that effort) of our focus.

For example, if you hit a ball with a bat upwards of a mountain, the range that the ball can cover will be much less than if you it the ball with the same amount of energy down towards a downward slope. That is to say: our result can be greatly amplified by force of effort and the most fitting direction to that effort.

Now let’s dive deeper to see how we can use this knowledge as a concrete guide to greater success in business and life. 

In general terms, this Newton second law of motion explains the difference between the people who rely only on hard work for achievement of a major kind in their lives and those who understand that the direction of our toil is equally as important as the toil itself.

Concisely, it is not only about hard work but also smart thought. 

No matter how great the force in motion is, the direction of an effort is critical to the overall value one can create. For example: there is a bricklayer who works for more than eighty hours a week, yet, he is assessed to be less valuable in the marketplace than another fellow with a degree in construction who works for the same number of hours  in the same industry of building.

The first person in this example is someone who relies on sheer force of effort alone; he thinks he has power, so he simply gets busy laying bricks all day with little or no thought. But the second fellow is an example of someone who thinks about a better value he wants to bring to the society before even deciding to work. 

After realizing that being a professional has more value; he hustles, he toils and he delays gratification to take the path of greater significance. He thinks carefully about what to do with his life long before an entry into the field of labour. 

He understands the question asked by the philosopher, Henry David Thoreau when he said: 

“It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants.”

“The question is: What are we busy about?”

View in another way, if we apply the same skills and energy in different set of directions, we will get different results. By the same token, if one same person diligently applies himself to different professions in the corporate world, he will most likely get unequal results. 

And, since we only have limited resources at our disposal, therefore where we choose to direct our resources of time, energy and talents may be more important than the resources themselves. 

My point here is not to ignore personal preferences and capabilities of people, but to highlight the fact that a good change of direction can enhance our contribution in a very significant way. 

A classic case in point is the story of the billionaire Jack Ma, who was an English teacher in China for some years with limited local impact. But by venturing into e-commerce business, he is now serving millions of people on a global scale.

Therefore, if we want to make the most of ourselves, we need to understand that sheer work ethic is hardly enough. We must think carefully about where to direct our effort as the former US President, Theodore Roosevelt rightly put it: “Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

So based on the foregoing, we need work ethic for sure. However, we should be intelligent in choosing where to place our focus and energy: our life’s work should be of superior value to the society.

Decide to be excellent at what you do but make sure that what you dedicate your one life upon, is something really matters to the world.

Every Winner Made a Decision to Get Started

“The only thing that stands between you and grand success in living are these two things: getting started and never quitting!”—Robert H. Schuller

Many great stories of success started with a very humble beginning. And one of those stories is the story of Sir Richard Branson; a teenager who dropped out of high-school due to a learning disability to start a business. 

After many years out of school, the hopeless-seeming dyslexic has surmounted huge odds to become one of the most flamboyant entrepreneurs of our time. 

Branson is a classic prove of the truth that, whatever may be our current circumstances, our destiny is ultimately shaped by the kind of choice we make: either to go forward and blaze a trail or to drawback and conform to mediocrity.

As narrated in his book ‘Losing my Virginity,’ Richard shows us a powerful example and meaning of resourcefulness. He does a lot with little resources; he uses his adversity as an advantage and he creates a profitable opportunity out of a vexing trouble. 

He did it all by getting good at one thing that many people feared the most: he knew how to get started, despite lack of experience, money and power. He never allowed fear of rejection, fear of failure and fear of the unknown to keep him from taking a step towards the realization of his big dreams.

Sir Richard Branson definitely deserves his fame. He has made good things happen. Today, it is your turn. So…

Get on and Do It Now

To be a winner, the trick is to get started now. And to do that, you don’t need to have everything perfectly in place. What you need to start is drive, determination, passion and work ethic. 

You can surprise the world with amazing success if you decide to take complete possession of your own mind to make the most of the present moment, as Branson said: “Successful entrepreneurs don't wait for the perfect moment - they create it.”

We need to make an attempt to have any real chance at success; if all we do is theorize and hypothesize without concrete action towards a goal that we want, we will never achieve anything of merit. 

Therefore, enough is enough with analysis paralysis—if you have a dream—now is the time to plunge ahead with action. Even with all the constraints that you may still want to sort out, you can make steady progress if you decide to do something with what you have at the moment. 

On this, the internet billionaire and the Co-founder of Dropbox, Andrew Houston has something to say: “If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it.” And he counsels right in concluding that: “What you should be doing is getting started.” 

There is no better way of gaining mastery on any subject than doing the work. However, if we delay taking action, doing what we can with what’s available, we will actually be denying ourselves not only an opportunity of practical knowledge but also a chance of a great success story down the line. So we will do well by remembering this nugget, every time we are tempted to tarry.